


A Road To Hope

by he_wants_to_write



Series: Larry Stylinson Fics [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 1940s, Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Louis Tomlinson, Declarations Of Love, Drinking & Talking, Emotional Hurt, Falling In Love, Farmer Harry Styles, Graphic Description, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Loss of Parent(s), Louis Tomlinson Has PTSD, M/M, Mental Instability, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Soldier Louis Tomlinson, Tenderness, Top Harry Styles, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26125678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/he_wants_to_write/pseuds/he_wants_to_write
Summary: “We’re far from the people and their issues, don’t hold back. Please.”It’s true. They are far away from anything that could stop them, the middle of nowhere being the safest place on Earth for them to fall in love. The sacred land where sacred love is created. However, Louis is certain that even if they weren’t safe, he wouldn’t resist the sight of Harry, his pleading eyes, his warm skin beneath his touch.orIn the heat of April, 1944, an escapee soldier lost in a dirt-road stumbles upon a small farm and finds himself recovering from the traumas of World War II in the simplicity of a frugal life, with the help of a little boy's innocent soul, and a farmer's hopeful green eyes.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: Larry Stylinson Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899958
Comments: 26
Kudos: 155





	A Road To Hope

The sun has dissipated into a thin sliver of orange, a barely visible piece of eternal fire hidden behind the uneven lines of the horizon, bathing the few existent clouds in warm tones. The land around looks nothing outside the definition of untouched sacredness, trees growing as they please, neighboring bushes and wildflowers.

If Louis didn’t feel so _terrified_ , he would be absolutely stunned by the view that surrounds him.

However, the rapid beat of his heart doesn’t allow him the privilege of admiring the scenery, let alone feel any kind of positive emotion, or even a reminder that there’s still beauty in the world.

The boots in his feet are too tight, laced around his ankles like vices, consuming any possibility of comfort. Still, he doesn’t take them off, he hasn’t even paid a thought to his bleeding toes since he began walking, hours before.

The thought of stopping, even for just a few minutes, to remove his boots, makes his breathing falter, to the point where he must gasp loudly for air to remind himself to breathe again. To remind himself that the oxygen around him isn’t toxic; isn’t burning his lungs and stealing his life away.

So, Louis doesn’t stop, even though his entire body aches with each step he takes on the empty dirt road he had stumbled upon. Sometimes, he finds himself groaning out loud, voice broken and thrown into the void of the land around him, but he continues to place one foot after another.

Towards where? He doesn’t know.

He’s aware that he’s throwing himself into the unknown, and the likelihoods of him collapsing dead on the unscathed fields are incredibly high. However, he prefers to become dust right there, to become one with nature, than to come back from where he came from.

The sea should be far away by now, the shore, a distant memory. The ships and the men, aligned with their infinity of fears and uniforms, all silenced by order, hierarchy, and war.

A breeze runs by and licks his skin raw, as if tearing him apart, but he doesn’t stop walking. The sun is disappearing, the trees and rocks are the only things to witness his movements before natural light fades out altogether.

He looks up from the endless stretch of dirt in front of his feet, and spots a faraway shape, a faint dark structure that looks out of place in the immaculate horizon. He keeps on walking, eyes piercing through the distant composition, as if trying to find any signs of the image being nothing but a mirage.

He decides he’s not being totally delusional when another small structure appears from behind, coming out of hiding as he continues pacing forward, discovering the piece of property bit by bit.

Underneath the sunset colors, Louis sighs and feels fear, mixed with broken hopes of finding shelter, at least for that night. It’s the first rational thought he’s had since he began marching.

As he continues to approach, he starts making out the shapes of a little farm; there’s fences, a small livestock of cattle that scatters the surrounding fields, a cottage, and a barn.

The last piece of the sun finally sinks into the edges of the earth, and Louis finds himself tattering the darkness, a faint light inside the house and the sounds of cows guiding him. When he reaches close enough, he exits the dirt road and cuts through the tall grass, in hopes of not drawing attention of whoever lives there.

With an arm in front of his body, he palps the pockets of his uniform jacket, grabbing a small box of matches and lighting one up, just to catch a few seconds of light, a glimpse of where he’s going.

About twenty matches later, he finds himself standing in front of the barn, the huge wooden door closed, but not chained shut. He hears no animals inside, and no dogs have yet appeared to protest his presence, so he slits the door open, making entrance.

The cold of the night hits after he closes the groaning gate. Through the gaps in the wood of its tall walls, the structure of the barn creaks and moans under the wind. He wants to light another match but assumes it’s too risky.

Instead, he finds his way into the darkness, and collapses somewhere between soft patches of dry hay, his body giving up to the countless hours of unstoppable activity.

Louis doesn’t even gather the strength to remove his boots, to peel away his dusty uniform, or to shrug off the heavy bag over his shoulders. Willingly or not, unconsciousness finds its way to him quickly, and the soldier falls asleep just as the wind whistles its terrifying lullaby.

-

Louis stirs awake and winces at the brightness that enters the barn through its cracks. The invasive sunlight burns his unaccustomed vision, and as he shifts above the hay-coated ground, his bones pop and ache.

His feet feel swollen, his knees numb, but looking down where he lies, it’s not the dirt and mud coating the boots that draw his attention.

The morning light draws a dark silhouette, a figure, standing in the opened doorway. It takes him a few seconds to recognize; it’s an actual person, instead of an illusion, like he hoped. It’s a human, and defining by the size of the outline, it’s a child.

The kid, before Louis gets the chance to speak or move, sprints away, disappearing again, and the soldier experiences a rush of panic that ties his veins in knots as he realizes the situation he’s in. He’s been caught.

In a shift motion of alarm that only a soldier understands, he gets on his feet and stumbles back a few times, trapped inside his own tired structure, before he manages to walk a few steps towards the entrance.

Then, another set of steps takes place in front of the barn, another silhouette, and this time, it’s not a child.

“Stop!” A man shouts, the light shining behind him makes it difficult for Louis to see. He recognizes the man’s position, though, how he’s standing defensively. Louis blinks; the barrel of a shotgun stares back at him. “Stop or I’ll shoot you.” The voice warns, though his tone wavers.

Years in the war, and Louis has never felt so uneasy in front of a gun like that very moment. There are no soldiers, no buddies of his around, and he himself is unarmed, unprotected and defenseless. It’s just him, an old barn and an unknown man with a deadly weapon, easily triggered by the slight pull of a finger.

He raises his hands up in the air, maybe out of habit or out of fear. He’s certain it’s a mixture of both.

“Where did you came from?” The silhouette questions, his voice reverberates inside the weak structure. “Who are you?”

Louis swallows nothing, his throat dry. “I can explain.” It’s all he offers, wincing at the aching of his unused vocal chords. The man doesn’t respond, so he takes advantage of the short silence. “I’m a soldier, I ran away from the shore-“

“Are there more of you around?” He interrupts. Louis doesn’t fail to notice the slight hesitation in the man’s tone, and he understands it. War tends to come with high prices, and even tiny reminders of it, sights of soldiers like himself, can trigger the worst in civilians.

Louis shakes his head in response. “No, it’s just me. I don’t have any weapons, either.” The gun continues to be pointed at him, so he adds in a rushed mumble; “I escaped from the recruiting ship and found the dirt road up north.”

Long seconds run by, the sun is merciless behind the man’s figure and Louis wonders if he’ll make it out of the situation alive.

If he dies now, no one will know. His family, or what’s left of it, will never know what happened to him. Maybe his dead mother will meet him in the afterlife, and they’ll talk about how his father was an excuse of a man that never cared about his wife and son. His friends will never hear from him again, not a letter, a death notice, or even a rumor to spread.

All it would take was the pull of a trigger.

However, it never came.

The stranger lowers his weapon, inch by inch until it hangs wavering above his knee. Louis sighs relieved, but there’s enough adrenaline running in his system to keep him alarmed for an entire day by now.

“Come out.” He demands, and before Louis can take a full step, he adds; “Slowly.”

The fact that the man seems to get taller and broader as he approaches doesn’t help the loud thumping of his heart. Even _if_ he doesn’t get killed, he can think of worst possibilities. He’s been hurt and beaten badly enough to know exactly what it feels like to wish death instead.

Once he makes it out of the entry of the barn, the whole scenery comes to life in the bright colors of the morning. The farm is less eerie in the daylight, and once again, if he wasn’t _terrified,_ he’d be admiring the space around him.

For a soldier, he’s for sure constantly afraid of a lot of things.

He can make the man’s face now, a carefully placed scowl on his sharp features and a head full of curls. He looks _young,_ maybe even around Louis’ age.

Another figure enters the scene, the kid from before, comes running towards the pair and wraps his small arms around the man’s leg, big green eyes watching behind his knee.

“Stay back, Jack.” The man demands, and the child seems to grip his leg tighter before letting go completely and taking a few steps back.

“Is he evil?” The little boy asks, his voice so tiny and delicate between the surrounding noises of the farm, contrasted with the alarming click of the gun against the man’s belt.

Louis looks into the eyes of the farmer, as if his life hangs by the reply he’s about to give the boy.

More long seconds, and the tall man speaks up, voice softer than before, yet still firm. “I don’t think so.”

Louis breathes out quietly, but keeps his hands up just in case, palms up towards the man and the sunlight. When the farmer locks the trigger and hangs the shotgun on his broad shoulders, safely behind his back, Louis’ body relaxes as his mind decides he’s out of danger, and he collapses.

His knees hit the dirt and he hear collective gasps around him, maybe even one from himself. His senses are too weak to keep notice of his situation, however, he does feel himself being lifted, an arm around his ribcage as he stands on his swollen feet again.

The stranger helps him to pace towards the house, over the few steps and through the door. The inside of the home has comforting scents; warm milk, cinnamon, and soap.

Louis is delusional, he’s positive he has gone mad, a thousand percent. He’s died from dehydration back on the dirt road and this is nothing but Heaven’s reverie. He’s been shot back in the barn and his mind is still active. Maybe he even boarded the ship he thought he escaped from and it sunk to the bottom of the ocean, dragging his poor body and soul with it.

Anything is possible, anything but being taken by a farmer and his kid, when he’s so weak that he wouldn’t protest or fight for his own right of being alive. Not that such thing exists in times of war.

“Here,” Is a single word he can hear, echoing inside his aching brain. There’s something pressed on his lips, wet and cold and solid. It’s a glass, a cup. Then, water hits his tongue, bathing his senses in sudden awareness, and he swallows around the dry in his throat before sipping on the clear tasting liquid.

His knees buckle as he drinks; he’s sitting. His vision clears for a moment, signs of a kitchen forming around his presence. Wooden cabinets, windows, curtains that look soft to the touch. There’s an old stove, one that looked a lot like his grandmother’s. He’s glad that the sweet old lady passed away before seeing her only grandchild becoming a soldier and bathing his hands in thick blood on the war zone.

“Hey,” The voice calls again, and this time Louis can hear it properly. He glances up, blinking, he recognizes the stranger farmer’s face and can sense the child’s presence beside him. They have the same eye color, a familiar trait. The man still looks too young to be the boy’s father. A sibling, maybe.

The little boy – _Jack,_ he recalls – isn’t afraid to put one of his small hands and chubby fingers on top of Louis’ wrist. He almost flinches. “Is he going to die?” He questions.

The farmer shakes his head, curls dancing on top of his sweaty forehead. “No, he just needs water. Get another glass, please.” He sticks the empty cup to the boy, and he follows the order quietly, disappearing somewhere and coming back with it filled.

Louis isn’t afraid to die anymore. He’s scared of many things but dying feels like an inevitable consequence more than a punishment. He has seem grown man beg for their lives, tears down their cheeks. He has heard an awful lot of crying, loud weeps of fear, and sobbing of mercy, all before a loud bang forces them into silence. He has tasted despair, and hopelessness has sung him to sleep.

“Louis.” The soldier croaks out, almost groaning around the relieving hydration in his mouth. If he’s dying now, he will at least have a name carved in his headstone, maybe settled beside the barn he trespassed. Better than being buried in ashes or in between torn-up limbs of other soldiers like him. “My name is Louis.” He whispers, feeling his teeth clatter, as if he’s cold.

The kitchen is silent, the child doesn’t speak but his innocence is palpable as he stares at the soldier with confusion. His rosy cheeks twitch underneath the recognition of the rawness of death, what years of war can do to a man.

The farmer does nothing, doesn’t respond, but nods shortly and offers him the filled cup. Louis’ fingers shudder as he grasps it, bringing it to his lips, and after he’s done drinking, the man carefully removes it out of his hold.

“Listen,” The farmer speaks, voice thick in uncertainty. “If you don’t hurt us, we won’t hurt you.”

Harsh sunlight bathes the man’s frame as he stands in front of Louis, bent towards the sitting soldier. Louis notices his nylon, beige shirt crumpled and stained around the chest, maybe from when he carried Louis all the way inside the house.

Suddenly, Louis feels dirty; his uniform, aside from dusty and covered in hairs of hay and mud, also stains his entire soul. He has never felt proud of wearing it, unlike his friends in the army back then. It was not a symbol of pride and bravery, but it was proof that he had killed. Those kinds of stains he can’t get rid of, dark blemishes of thick blood and stolen lives underneath his fingernails. 

“I won’t hurt you.” Louis states, hoping that his words and his tone can tell the unknown pair around him that he has never meant to hurt anyone. “I won’t. I won’t.” He repeats, for reasons his mind can’t grasp.

“Alright.” The man says, almost understandingly. “What should we do, then? Do you want me to take you back?”

Louis’ eyes widen, his jaw falls slack and closes again in sudden anxiety. His heartbeat falters. “No, no, please,”

“Calm down. I just wish you’d tell me where you want to go now. I can drive you back to the city if that’s what you want.” The farmer speaks, retracting his hands from Louis’ shoulder. Louis didn’t realize he had put it there previously. “Or you can stay here, for now.”

“Let him stay, Hazzy.” The boy objects, drawing Louis attention to him for a second, before turning to the farmer again.

“It’s up to him, Jack.” He points, green eyes pinning Louis’ drained figure to the fragile wooden chair.

Louis doesn’t take another second into making his decision.

-

When Louis laces his boots off, it feels like religion should. He breathes relieved, although pain shoots up his ankles and wraps around the bones of his toes like barbwire. He removes his jacket, tired shoulders aching and his back cracks at least twice. His white shirt underneath is ruined, but he keeps it, and remains wearing the pants. He doesn’t have enough energy to go through his bag right at that minute.

The soldier sits back on the soft push of the mattress, catching a glimpse of the farmer’s figure on the door of the room. He sits up straight, glares at him. “I could stay in the barn.” He says, looking down at his feet. It’s ironic how a soldier cringes at the sight of dry blood seeping through the fabric of his socks.

“Don’t worry, this room is never used, anyway.” He points out, leaning against the frame, arms over his chest. “You need proper rest, before you go along your way.”

Louis nods, although he shivers at the thought. A runaway soldier, with no family, no wife, or kids to come back to, and now, no honor at all. For all he knows, his hometown could’ve been bombarded, his childhood home burned to the ground, and all he’s ever known his entire life, crumbled to steaming ashes.

“I didn’t mean to trespass.” He mumbles suddenly.

The farmer’s eyebrows shoot up and he cracks a smile. A dimpled one, for Louis’ surprise. “It’s alright. Like I said, if you don’t hurt us-“

“You won’t hurt me.” He completes, a breeze entering the place through the window, the curtains dancing.

The room he’s been offered is nice. There’s a simple bed, a makeshift nightstand out of a tall box and a large chest in the corner. None of it looks used, the place may be inhabited for God knows how long. He mentally curses himself for already wanting to pry on the lives of the people that offered him shelter.

The man nods, uncrossing his arms and entering the room. Louis stiffens, aware and awake for whatever is to come, even if he feels like he doesn’t need to.

“There’s a few clothes in the trunk that might fit you. You can put those on, after you’ve bathed, if you want to.”

Louis stares incredulously at the man. He feels more distraught now, while being offered a bath and fresh clothes, than when the stranger had the barrel of a gun to his face, offering him a hostile welcome. He coughs, nodding, snapping out of his confused state. “Thank you.” He mutters simply, not knowing what else to say, to express the feeling in his chest.

The farmer seems to be out of words as well, as he takes a few seconds and a sigh to speak again. “I’ll let you to it. The washroom is at the end of the hallway.” With that, the farmer exits the room, his boots making the staircase moan quietly as he walks away.

Louis blinks, standing up just to pick his bag from the floor. He tugs his own clothes out of his overly large duffel, a clean shirt and pants, and heads out of room into the hallway. It’s a narrow space, but it’s long and a round window at the end draws a circle of light in the wooden flooring.

On his way, he fights the urge to investigate the other rooms. Despite the doors being open, he feels like he’s invading, like his presence is breaking some sort of purity the place holds. He has had this feeling since the first time he got recruited and came back to his hometown, several months after. When people clapped and thanked him for his presence in the battlefield, he could only remember screams, death, the scent of blood and gunpowder. He barely left his house since then.

When he showers, it does nothing to wash away the dark corners in his mind, the places where he can’t scrub clean, no matter how hard he tries. His skin doesn’t feel tacky anymore, his hair isn’t matted and covered in dust, but he still feels incredibly dirty, impure, unworthy. He doesn’t look in the mirror, doesn’t want to take another glance at the deep tone of brown and copper in his uniform.

Two washcloths and a towel later, Louis exits the bathroom feeling like he didn’t bathe at all.

Later that night, after hours trapped in the silence of the room he’s been offered to stay in, Louis is welcomed to dinner. He feels immediately filthy when he sits at the small table and watches a child’s small fingers grasping at delicious food, and a farmer’s skilled hands cutting through meat. He doesn’t have anything to offer, and the thought sticks throughout the whole meal.

“Louis?”

The soldier lifts his eyes immediately, attentive, and aware, before he realizes the little boy looking up at him with questioning eyes. He can feel the farmer’s emerald orbs watching him, too.

Jack flickers a single curl away from his eyelids, his hands clumsy as he does so while holding a fork. “What do you think of dogs?”

He squints, his mental gears working to form an answer. Children are always spontaneous, much like himself growing up. He used to get along quite well with them before the war. Before everything. “I like them. If they’re nice.” He says, contented that he managed to talk without stumbling over his words.

The candlelight in the middle of the table paints the kitchen in yellow and orange. The boy’s soft features contrast with the carved lines of the other man’s face. He has a dimpled grin on, for some reason, and it deepens underneath the sharp shadows.

“I want a dog. Hazzy won’t get it for me, though.” The kid speaks, taking another bite of his food to punctuate his words.

The farmer blinks at the boy. “I told you before, we have to wait. Now it’s not the best time for a pet.”

It’s a chat that Louis didn’t see happening, for sure. It’s so lighthearted, though. Between the thousand worries and unpleasant feelings that a child could be dealing with, in the face of war, Jack wants a dog. It almost wipes away the heaviness in the soldier’s chest.

Louis glances at Jack and gives him a grin because that’s what he feels like he can offer without scarring the innocent soul. The mere thought of talking to the child feels he’s spreading a disease, a virus that lives in his voice, in his eyes and underneath his fingertips. He wonders if wars were created like this, propagating contaminated pieces of thoughts to the younger generations until there was nothing that could be done to solve it, but to eliminate a mass of lives altogether.

They continue to eat in silence, the flame of the candle eating away at the column of fat and wax, until the farmer’s deep voice breaks through the space again. “I’m Harry, by the way.”

“Har-ry.” Jack whispers, trying to say the name in its proper pronunciation. He fails and settles with; “Hazzy.”

“Oh.” Louis says, nodding. He bites at the food and hopes that the candlelight flickers off for a few minutes just so he doesn’t feel as watched. It’s not comforting, but not threatening either. Just pairs of eyes stripping him to the point of silence.

Harry breaks it again though, seemingly reading through the soldier’s discomfort when he’s given a space to speak. “This is Jack, he’s four, going be five in December.” He gestures towards the boy.

The child lights up at the mention of his birthday, eyes going bright and big underneath the dimmed space of the kitchen. Louis grins, feeling himself settling a bit better inside the environment now that he knows slight details. Also, Harry is grinning, and the sight of dimples and soft under eyes are a lot less intimidating.

“My birthday is also in December.” The soldier informs.

The small boy thrashes his legs in excitement. “We can have a double birthday party,” Jack mutters, more to himself than to the rest of the table.

December is a distant thought, almost eight months away. The beginning of April has been a blur to him; sometimes he forgets that the concept of days and months exist. War is timeless, and so are its consequences.

“Which day?” Harry asks this time and his voice is soft, maybe for Jack’s sake.

Louis swallows, drinks the water in his cup to balance the nervousness living in his throat. “The 24th.”

“Christmas Eve!” Jack expresses, the date an obvious important matter for him. Louis is used to this reaction, the surprise of being born in the eve of such an eventful holiday. Growing up, it was fun, getting two presents instead of one, a huge celebration party that seemed to last for days, and hearing an awful lot of ‘you were your mother’s Christmas gift’. He liked to believe it was true.

Harry chuckles at Jack’s reaction. The sound reverberates in Louis’ ears. “That sounds fun.” He comments.

“It was.” Louis replies, clicking his fork on the porcelain plate.

It was, before he turned eighteen and got drafted for a war that everyone seemed to be waiting to happen. It was fun before he lost track of the last five years of his life, every birthday going unnoticed because he was either in the battlefield, recovering from injuries, or grieving loved ones.

If war doesn’t take a life, it kills dreams and hopes. It makes sure to scrape minds away to nothingness, to the point of being unaware of time, age, and the mere idea of a future is an illusion, at best. Louis often forgets his own age, because in the end, it doesn’t matter. He’s seen way too many nineteen-year-old boys dying to believe that age doesn’t influence on your lifespan. Not in times like these.

Looking at Jack and his childish smile, chubby cheeks, and crossed legs over the chair, he can’t even imagine that same kid becoming a soldier, doing what he did, going through the training he went through, killing like he did. Time should stop, let the kid stay like that, a kid, simply, uncorrupted by anything outside of the idea of fun double birthday parties and nice dogs.

Louis wonders if Harry went to war too. If he got drafted, became a soldier. He looked the type, even more so than Louis himself; he’s tall, built and intimidating, broad enough to stand in the front lines and hold at least three guns in a strap.

Something soft and shimmering in his green eyes tells Louis that he didn’t.

The dinner ends soon after, Jack speaks a few more times but Louis can’t hear it. He’s distant, voices are muffled and even Harry’s deep tone goes unnoticed. The farmer doesn’t pressure the soldier, as Louis silently cleans his dishes and goes upstairs with a shallow grin, a quiet _goodnight_ , and a lit candle that Harry pushes into his hands gently.

Louis takes one whole minute to reach the room he’s staying in, to tuck his limbs under the wool blanket and to blow out the dancing flame of the candle. He finds it easy for his senses to mend in the darkness, becoming one with dusk, dormant and unharmed until morning.

-

The next two days in Harry’s farm feels completely surreal.

Louis doesn’t grasp the concept of time. He wakes up in a warm bed, although his limbs shake like he’s in pain; he bathes properly and has the best meals he’s ever had for the past five years, and yet, he finds himself in random spots of the farm sometimes, sweating as if he just ran a mile in seconds.

He spends hours sitting in the front porch of the house, watching Harry cross the front yard every couple of hours while doing farm work, a wave and a smile on his tired, flushed face. Louis always waves back, weakly. Jack pops out of nowhere every hour, a different toy in his hand every time, as if testing for what will capture Louis’ attention.

And still, Louis feels like he can’t move a muscle. When he does, it’s around night fall, after Harry recoils the cattle and tugs vegetables out of their garden for dinner, Jack trailing behind with smaller fruits in his grip. Only then, he shivers and shifts, when his skin doesn’t feel like rusty iron locked in place any longer, not until the next day rolls around.

He doesn’t try to understand it, and neither does Harry, although he often looks like he already does understand it. There’s something in the depths of his features that holds comfort, comprehension and patience, and Louis almost can’t handle how _kind_ the farmer has been to a complete stranger, to a soldier, out of all people.

Louis feels useless, and in the few times he speaks, is to apologize, or to thank him about a dozen times. Harry is always polite enough to smile and tell him that it’s alright, before he pokes a dimple into his cheek and puts food in his plate.

On the third day, Louis wakes up before sunrise, and when he sits up on the mattress, he spots Harry outside. He gets a rush of adrenaline, maybe it’s the warm tones of the sun peeking through the horizon, maybe it’s for a chance to show Harry that there’s not reason to pity him, no space for shameful sympathy.

The soldier puts on his boots for the first time again since the day he got there, and he forces his mind to remind himself that he’s going to work on a farm, instead of stepping in blood and guts again. He’ll be alright.

The thick soles thump like thunder in the fragile flooring, and he steps carefully in attempts not to disturb Jack’s sleep, where he rests just in the room next door. Once he’s outside, met with sounds of animals and rustles of leaves, licked by the morning breezes, he makes a beeline to the place where Harry stands. The chicken coop.

The tall farmer holds something like a basket in his hands, and he’s curved over the short entrance of the coop. His overalls stretch over his shoulder blades and it takes Louis a few seconds to find his voice.

“Harry,” He calls, softly, but it startles Harry anyway. The man knocks his head on the ceiling of the coop, a few chickens cheep and hoot at the noise. “Oh, sorry,”

“Louis?” He asks, turning around, a palm over his head. “Are you alright? What are you doing up so early?”

“I want to help.” The soldier states, leaving no space for questioning or doubts, either for Harry or himself.

The curly-haired man grins, glaring at the shorter soldier as if searching for a contradiction. Louis fidgets with the edge of his shirt, waiting for the farmer’s verdict. Even a negative answer now feels better than seconds in silence, stuck underneath Harry’s attentive gaze.

“We’re collecting eggs.” The farmer tells, and Louis breathes relieved, feeling the sunlight bathe his skin warm. “First, you throw this to draw them out of their nests. You go in and fetch while they eat.”

The soldier listens attentively as Harry explains the simple steps. He pushes a small cotton bag into Louis’ hands, long pale fingers undoing the knot at the top to expose crumbs of dried-up corn and ground sunflower seeds.

“Like this.” Harry reaches for the dry ingredients and grasps a handful between his palms, showing them to Louis, before tossing it on the ground. In seconds, the chickens leave their coop in a hurry, scattering around their feet and pecking at the solid soil, feeding quietly.

Louis silently repeats the motion, watching as more chickens and even smaller chicks approach the spot where he flings their food.

Harry’s deep voice breaks the melody of the animals; “Here. Go in and fetch the eggs, carefully.” He pushes the empty basket on Louis’ grasp, and stands with his hands on his hips, glancing between the chickens and the clueless soldier.

Louis obeys; that’s something he’s undeniably good at, or at least, learned to be. He enters the coop, his smaller figure fitting in through the entrance with ease. The nests, made of hay and sticks, are round and dirty with soft feathers.

He goes through each row; his fingers barely tremble as he grasps each egg with extreme care. Underneath his nails, lie stories of times he clutched grenades and explosives, cleaned guns coated in blood and mud. Something as mundane as eggs feel out of place within his grip.

On the last nest, he reaches blindly for the solid and textured shells, but touches something humid and soft instead. He flinches, draws his hands back and leaves the coop in seconds.

He places the basket in the ground and gesture towards the enclosure, voice wavering and drawing the farmer’s attention. “There’s something weird there.”

Harry frowns. “What? Where?”

“I don’t know-“ He breathes, and Harry makes entrance, coming back seconds later with his hands joint together, his palms forming a bowl around a mess of hay, feather, broken shells of what used to be an egg and then; a newborn chick, wiggling cluelessly as it attempts its first movements of its life.

“One of ‘em hatched.” Harry mutters, and he’s smiling down at the ugly little creature.

Louis stares at the bird’s skinny joints, its beak opening and closing slack, eyes still sealed by a membrane. It can barely be considered a living thing, so twisted and covered in slick and _silent,_ but its little chest goes up and down, and its breathing on top of Harry’s careful touch. It’s the same air that Louis breathes, and for that, the soldier feels a twinge of awareness.

The farmer’s finger comes up to remove a few feathers away from the chick’s bony feet. “Jack is going to love it. He named every chick that hatched, but he never remembers their names afterwards.”

The corner of Louis’ mouth tug upwards, not matter how hard he tries to fight the warm feeling washing over his chest. It’s an endearing sensation, to realize the boy’s innocence, and how the smallest of things have such an impact in his little world. That, joined with the realization of life, right there cuddled up in Harry’s hands, is something that Louis wasn’t expecting to feel again anytime soon. He can _almost_ breathe without feeling pain.

Harry goes back inside and places the little creature where it was previously, and Louis has the sudden urge to watch it wiggle out of its shell again, and nurse it until it can walk and eat on its own. When the farmer emerges again, he has a grin, a planned promise of showing Jack the newborn animal. He can tell that Harry himself is excited too.

“You’re a good father.” Louis says, before the can control the connection of his brain with his mouth. He means it, though.

Silently, he has watched enough interaction between the farmer and the child to realize how free the boy’s spirit is, how it lingers around the farm, weightless, alive, spontaneously youthful. It’s refreshing, and it’s something that good parenting allows. Even more in difficult times, even amid war, Harry still managed to make Jack see the world in the best light possible.

Harry smiles, but he shakes his head slightly, soft green eyes squinting underneath the direct sunlight. Louis starts to feel it burning his exposed arms and collarbones, but he doesn’t mind it. “Jack is my nephew.” He informs.

“Oh.” Louis nods, a thousand questions filling his mind, just out of curiosity towards the small family that lives in the middle of nowhere, settled in a forgotten dirt road with no name at all. He fights the urge to ask. It’s not his place to do so. “Well, still, he’s a good kid. I’m certain it’s mostly because of you.”

If the morning sun doesn’t blind Louis, Harry’s smile undoubtedly does. A breeze runs by and licks Louis’ face with a gentleness that washes his heart clean. He feels light, for a moment. Something in the humid air shifts; maybe it’s Harry’s silent gratification.

“Breakfast?” The farmer offers, raising the basket of eggs in his hands, and Louis doesn’t have to think twice to respond.

-

_The ground beneath Louis’ feet is shifting._

_It’s a trembling structure, iron walls vibrate under the sounds of a loud horn. Louis grasps at the leather straps around his waist, in search of anything, any security amid the chaos. He feels like he’s inside an earthquake, and the people around him in the sealed room seem to share the same despair._

_Barely familiar faces are glaring at him, as if he’s got the answer to the problem around them, the key to the closed metal compartment they are trapped in. There’s a window behind his head, and he twists his painful torso inside the layers of his uniform and his coat, meeting the sight of an endless sea._

_“We’re sinking.” Some other soldier says, and the ship’s horn continues to echo into the void of the open ocean, reaching no one’s hearing but the victims of the approaching catastrophe._

_Louis can’t move, his legs are heavy like pure steel, the back of his thighs feel glued to his seat. His chest swells, his heartbeat suddenly too fast to be contained inside his ribcage, moving up to his throat instead. He closes his eyes, and only opens again when he hears the faint screams of the other soldiers between the ship’s horn._

_Glass cuts the back of his neck, the window behind him smashed by the water pressure. They’re underwater, there’s nothing they can do. They’re cradled on the bottom of the ship, stuck in its army compartments._

_However, instead of salty, gelid water cascading into the room through the broken window, in comes a flood of warm, thick, and metallic-tasting liquid. It’s dark, almost black, and it paints the iron walls in crimson streaks, drowning the soldiers and Louis himself._

_It’s blood, pouring into every surface of the place, and invading Louis’ insides, as he tries to breathe, but tastes metal, and he tries to remain at the surface, but can’t move. He suffocates, eyes wide open amid the ocean of darkness and fear, and the ship’s horn stops completely._

Louis jolts awake, his vision desperate roaming around as he sits up, trying to grasp any sort of materialized proof that he isn’t in hell, rotting away in the center of the Earth. It’s dark and there’s a faint cold breeze on the surface of his shoulders. He’s sweating, his shirt clinging onto his skin.

Seconds later, he sees it. A faint yellow light forming around the edges of the closed door of the room, becoming brighter and stronger, until the flap of the door clicks open and a figure is evident underneath the dancing flame of a candle.

Louis doesn’t have much time to protest the silhouette approaching; it reaches the edge if the bed in seconds. The flickering amber light paints his face and his curls; it’s Harry, and his porcelain skin is molded into a concerned frown.

“Louis, can you hear me?” He questions, tone rushed and voice thick from sleep. He plants a large hand on Louis’ shoulder, and he doesn’t retract when he feels the cold sweat dampening the material of his clothing. He clings instead, twisting it into his long fingers, physically grasping Louis’ attention. “Say something, hey-“

“I drowned.” Louis whispers, not certain if the farmer catches it, as his voice flutter away and melts like wax. “I died.”

Harry shakes his head, curls falling on his forehead. “No, you didn’t. You’re here, Louis.”

Louis blinks, and stares around the room now that there’s a source of light, cradled in Harry’s trembling hand. Harry doesn’t rush a reaction out of him, but sticks the small fire further into the room, stretching his arm outwards. “See?” The farmer points out.

Louis can see. The door is open, all the wood is painted ocher beneath the color of the flame, the curtain in the window dances at the mercy of the nightly breeze. He sighs, feeling his heart thumping against his ribcage, and he doesn’t breathe in any liquid. He doesn’t taste blood. However, his throat feels raw and tight. He wonders if he screamed in his sleep, awaking Harry.

It’s a fact. And it awakes Jack too, because there’s a small silhouette on the doorway, standing there for a second, lingering until it disappears into the hallway. Louis is glad that it’s dark, and he can’t see the look in the little boy’s face, the absolute horror and confusion that may be creeping into his chubby features. He feels terrible, as if he had just planted the seed of war inside the place, inside the hearts of the innocent people that sheltered him, now that they’ve witnessed the eternal nightmare that scar a soldier’s mind.

“I woke you both.” He mumbles, blue eyes piercing the surface of the blanket. He feels Harry’s stare burning a hole into the side of his face. “I’m so sorry, Harry,”

The farmer shakes his head, the candle flickers, his fingers grip Louis’ shirt tighter. “None of that, please. It’s not your fault.”

“What time is it?” Louis asks, dismissing the pity in Harry’s tone. Taking any sort of sympathy towards him right now feels just like it did when he suffocated in his dream.

Harry blinks. “Around four, maybe, I don’t know for sure. Why?”

“I don’t want to sleep anymore.” He informs, shifting his legs beneath the blanket. They don’t feel like steel as he sits up completely, setting his bare feet on the gelid floor. It sends a shiver up his body, and he’s never felt so glad to feel cold instead of warmth around him. “Can you leave me the candle, please?”

There’s an internal struggle evident in Harry’s features, the way his eyes shift between Louis and the wall behind him. He settles with asking; “Why? Where do you want to go?”

The soldier sighs. “I don’t know. Outside, maybe. I could start working early today.”

“It’s _too_ early, Louis.” There’s something tender in the way Harry finishes his sentences. “You need to rest.”

“I don’t want to. I can’t.” There’s something painful and broken about the way Louis finishes his.

The pair exchange a glance that last a few seconds, and then Harry breaks eye contact, turning his face to look at the open door. Louis doesn’t fail to notice the soft curves of his cheekbones, brushed lightly with the flame’s brightness.

When Harry looks at him again, he snaps his head to meet his gaze. “Alright. I’ll check on Jack, and you wait for me downstairs.”

Louis thinks about protesting. He wants to pace around, alone preferably, but it’s not his land, it’s not his bed, and not even the candles belong to him. So, he nods simply, and Harry stands up, settling the candle holder on his nightstand and dissipating into the darkness of the hallway.

When he paces downstairs and finds himself lingering around the kitchen table, somehow anxious of Harry’s reaction. The farmer wasn’t mad, or at he didn’t seem like it, at all. However, it doesn’t stop the insecurities and the familiar alarm in his brain to set off. Harry could still kill him, and no one would know. No one wants a lonely, traumatized soldier in their home, waking up their families at the crack of dawn with screams of bloody murder.

So, when Harry appears in the room with another candle and a soft grin, Louis is slightly surprised. “Follow me.” The farmer instructs. It’s a familiar command to Louis, but it comes tender and whispered amid a quiet home, instead of a harsh shout deep into the muddy trenches.

Louis relaxes and watches Harry’s back shift and his ankles move underneath the candlelight, as he continues to pace until they leave the house, cross the front porch and the yard, and towards the barn. The soldier only feels alarmed again when Harry opens the moaning gate, letting them both inside, closes and walks further, deeper into the barn. A skinny set of stairs leaning over the edge of an entresol, something that Louis definitely didn’t spot when he first entered the place.

“Can you go up?” Harry mutters, picking the candle from Louis and waiting for the soldier to go up the set of stairs, careful, until he reaches the stable flooring above.

Maybe it was supposed to be a mezzanine, or a balcony, but it’s just a high floor with a hole in the wall, one where a window once stood. It’s big enough to fit both men as the sit on the edge, legs dangling, as they face east.

The sun is yet to rise and announce the morning, but Louis can see where the land ends and the sky takes over. He can see the nebula tracing patterns in the dark sheet above the Earth, cotton-like textures under the speckles of stars. It’s a beautiful sight, and for the first time in a while, he’s not terrified to admire the view.

“Fancy one?”

Louis looks aside to find Harry handling a box of Piccadilly’s, his pale fingers already drumming one of the cigarettes in his other grip. Louis hums and takes one from the package, setting it between his lips before lifting the candle up to light it.

The tobacco soon turns into smoke that lingers around the pair, settling inside their lungs as they inhale, unintentionally synchronizing their heartbeats. It’s all quiet besides the eventual rustles of the awaking cattle in the grass bellow. That is, until Harry speaks again.

“I dream of Jack and his mother almost every night.” He says, voice thick from smoke and sleep. Louis reminds himself that he woke Harry up and feels an instant of guilt.

Louis doesn’t know what to say, how to keep the conversation going, when it’s evident that Harry wants to talk. Luckily, Harry reads into him easily. He should feel vulnerable enough to back away, but he doesn’t.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” The farmer says, and although Louis can’t see past the burning ash of his cigarette, he can hear Harry’s grin in his voice.

He shrugs amid the darkness. “I don’t know what to say.” He confesses.

“You can say whatever you want.” Harry states, and Louis hears his inhale as he takes another drag of his tobacco.

He takes one too, and after the toxic substances settle his bloodstream quiet, he speaks. “Who’s Jack’s mother?”

He doesn’t fail to notice the hitch in the farmer’s breath. “My sister.” Another drag, another hitch. “She passed away after he was born.”

Louis nods quietly, taking in the slight traces of pain in Harry’s voice. Louis never had siblings, but the thought of losing one shakes him to the core. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s been almost five years, it’s alright.” Harry states, though his tone wavers.

Jack was born into the war. Harry’s sister probably got pregnant in 39’, when the threats of war were fresh, and the recruiting of soldiers was all that was spoken about. Every September, Louis tastes the same bitterness that seems to have lodged under his tongue, coming back every year on the anniversary of the war, of the week he left to his first draft, and came back condemned to never be the same again.

That’s why he escaped; fled the line of soldiers to the ship before he could board it. It was about to be his second draft. It was too soon. He didn’t even have time to recover from the previous one yet. He believes that not even a hundred years would be enough to do so.

He was set to be a son of war, like Jack, like Harry. The only difference is that something in their blood lighted up in hope, instead of despair.

“What about his father?” Louis questioned, wondering if he was going too far. Something in the easiness of Harry’s fingers as he pulled another cig out told Louis that he wasn’t.

Harry flicked a match, pressing the flame to the tip of the cigarette. “He got drafted one year after she passed, and never came back.”

Louis swallows the lump in his throat. War took one of Jack’s parents. It didn’t take Harry though.

“When we got his death notice, I knew I was going to be the next to be recruited.” Harry explains, leaning back and shifting his knees on the edge, the tobacco hanging on his lips. “I grabbed Jack and ran away from our hometown. This farm was owned by my grandparents, it was the first place that came to mind when I was on the run.”

Louis finishes his cigarette with a long exhale.

Harry isn’t so different from himself as he thought he was. The farmer was also escaping war and risked the abandonment of his entire life behind just for the right to breathe for another day, for another reason to live that doesn’t evolve death, battle, and empty honor.

He wondered how Harry was before the war. If he was a loud, chatty, and spontaneous young man, like Louis himself was. He wondered if he had someone, a wife, or if he had a job of his own, if he had a large family and a group of friends.

It didn’t really matter, in the end. War changed everyone, even the ones that didn’t stare at death in the eyes, even the ones that didn’t have to pull a trigger to somebody’s head.

Harry sighs and continues. Louis sits in silence, vision glued to the dark horizon. “This place was completely abandoned when we got here. It took a couple years to get everything fixed and set proper to live in. Not completely, though. Still no electricity. I’ll work on that when the war’s over.”

In Louis’ mind, the war will never end. Harry will never be able to work with wires or to flick a light bulb on, because the war will never be over. It will linger for eternity, like a river born out of a waterfall, flowing aimlessly into an everlasting course. Bodies will live in the depths of the trenches and in the bottom of the ocean, and fire from the bombs will burn until there’s nothing but ash in the air.

Louis doesn’t have faith, doesn’t have much of anything positive to go around in his brain.

“What about you, though?” Harry asks suddenly, tone breaking through the dawn. The sky is gaining a bit of light by now, the edges of the earth more evident beneath a faint glow.

“What about me?” Louis echoes.

Harry presses in closer. “Tell me more about you.”

Louis sighs. There’s no point in that. His story isn’t interesting and there’s no bravery in anything he did through the years of his shallow life. “I’m just a soldier.”

“No, you’re not.” Harry retorts, frowning. “You’re beyond that, I’m sure.”

“How can you be sure?” The soldier says.

“Tell me, then.” Harry insists.

So, Louis tells him, because the rusty chains around his chest are tired of holding on, locking his breathing, trapping his life. Maybe it’s the tobacco that opened up his airways for something else.

He’s speaking before he knows it, telling Harry about growing up a single child beside a lovely mother that didn’t survive a cold in his teenage years. He talks about living alone after that, working tiny jobs around his hometown to get a few bills paid. He talks about the draft, the training that barely trained anyone for the real combat at all.

He doesn’t talk about his time in the battlefield. He doesn’t share the times he’s felt empty, lonely in a trench, between lifeless bodies that used to be his friends. He doesn’t say a word about the dozens of injuries scattered across his skin, the thick scars of grazing gunshots in his back, the slices of knifes in his sides.

He settles with saying it was shit, and that was it. Because it’s a disease that he doesn’t want to contaminate the curly-haired farmer with. He can see the glint in Harry’s eyes, a spark of coated hope, and it’s like a lighthouse in the middle of an angry and dark sea. He can see it in Jack too, and he wonders if Harry’s ways taught the little boy to be just the same.

Luckily, Harry doesn’t push that part of the story out. He nods simply, and glances at Louis like he’s a treasure to be discovered. Louis feels uneasy underneath that stare, but it’s fine. The sun begins to appear on the horizon bit by bit, and soon Harry’s eyes avert to the nature’s sight, his skin turning golden beneath the sunrise’s tones.

“Is Jack afraid of me now?” Louis questions with honesty.

Harry looks at him, and this time, his stare feels weightless. “Why would he be?”

“I shouted bloody murder in my sleep.” He explains, almost embarrassed.

“You know, Jack understands what is going on out there.” Harry says, exposing a piece of information that Louis didn’t know it would hurt. The subject even grazing the little boy’s mind felt like a crime, an impure act. A murder of his innocence. “I told him and explained everything a while ago. I think it’s important, I don’t want to feed an illusion to him.”

Harry picks on the edge of the Piccadilly’s package as he looks down at his fingertips, tearing the thin cardboard apart. Louis nods, his gaze lost on the few clouds above them. It makes sense, and it pains Louis to realize that Harry was forced into parenthood so early in his life, although he seemed to love it completely. Still, the fact that Louis holds nothing but pessimism, and Harry holds hope just for Jack, paints a bright picture in his mind of Harry’s heart.

“Should I talk to him, then?” Louis asks, afraid that the answer will be negative, that his words are poisoned and will lace around Jack’s innocent soul and drag him down to nothingness, ending up like Louis and his nightmares.

Of course, the reply is gentle. “Yes.” Harry mutters, eyes glistening under the sunrise, voice tender like the morning after a harsh dawn.

-

Hours after a quiet breakfast, Louis finds Jack sitting at the stairs in the front porch.

His small hands are tucked inside a bowl, his chubby arms moving and fidgeting with something that Louis can’t see yet. The soldier smiles in the frame of the front door, noticing how the boy’s tiny curls form a halo in the sunlight. He looks like an angel, an out-of-place figure amid the crudeness of the world.

Louis approaches soon and takes a seat besides the child. Jack is picking at pieces of fruit and vegetables, tearing bits of apples and green beans, removing the seeds with an unnecessary amount of patience.

"What are you doing there?” Louis asks, not forcing his voice to be soft, although it comes out like it.

The child picks a round green bean between his fingertips, and places it on top of an opened cotton bag. It’s the second time Louis has seen one of those in the household, and he wonders for a moment if Harry sewed them himself.

“I’m taking the seeds out so we can plant it later and the green beans are for dinner.” He explains briefly, calmly, as if he wasn’t a big part on the growing of those plants and trees. “Do you like fruit?” Jack questions with a simplicity that makes Louis’ heart grow

“Yes, specially the ones that are sweet.” The soldier responds with sincerity. He remembers his grandmother’s great liking for cherries, and how he grew up eating holiday desserts mostly made from the sweet, tiny, crimson-colored fruit.

The child hums. “I didn’t like it that much, but Hazzy told me if I eat it, I’ll be stronger.”

“Harry’s right.” Louis smiles, tracing a random pattern on the dirt ground bellow them with his toes. That sounds like Harry.

He breathes, and there’s no hesitation from Jack’s part to talk about anything. He doesn’t even know how to start. He blames the war again for making him unable to deal with children forever.

Only Louis’ heartbeat picks up when he calls; “Jack?” And the boy averts his big green eyes at the soldier. He carries on; “Do you know what happened last night?”

Unsurprisingly, Harry must have done his fair share of talking with the kid, because Jack nods shortly, shoving a piece of apple into his mouth. “You had a bad dream?” He says between chews of his fruit.

Louis nods. “Yes, I did. Did I scare you?”

“No, I just heard a loud noise and saw Hazzy going to your room.”

 _His_ room. Louis forces that statement to the back of his mind, for now. He glances at the child and notices a tiny gap between his bottom teeth. He wonders how Harry dealt with his nephew losing teeth, if he pulled it out, or if he let it fall on its own. Louis was always the one to pull his own out, to the horror of his mother.

“I have bad dreams too, sometimes.” Jack confesses, but it doesn’t sound like a secret. “One time, I dreamt that a giant chicken was chasing me.”

Louis can’t help but to chuckle loudly at the boy’s telling. The imagery alone is enough to make both of them giggle. “I’m sure it was terrifying.” Louis says, biting his lips to stop himself from giggling again. His heart feels suddenly lighter.

Jack doesn’t suppress his laughter though, as he opens his arms as wide as he can, gesturing with emphasis. “It was this big!”

With that, the scary idea of the talk dissipates into the midday atmosphere, as light as Jack’s smile. Louis sticks around for a while and helps Jack with the remaining of the fruits, and soon they have a handful of apple’s seeds and a bag filled with green beans, fresh and selected for the future meal.

It’s a simplicity that Louis missed. For him, planting your own food is the smallest of pictures in the entire world, just a tiny reminder of what humankind used to be, before the masses and the politics, and the wars. For Jack, it’s everything, it’s the big picture, it’s his duty to tear apart the pieces of sweet fruit, collect the seeds and plant it later, only to germinate more fruit.

The cycle is everlasting and delicate. Jack is the main force, and he doesn’t have a clue about it. So much so, that as soon as he places the bag of beans in the kitchen sink, he pulls Louis by the hand to the area beside the house, where fences protect and hold an orchard.

It’s rather a rich one, there’s four trees of apples and other bushes of fruit Louis can’t recognize. He’s careful to not step on the patches of vegetables growing in the ground, struggling to balance himself on a single empty trail of soil between the richness of life growing around it.

He watches silently as Jack makes a shallow hole with his hands, places two or three black seeds there, and tops it over with the dirt he dug out.

He stands up, proudly staring at the small disturb in the soil, and turns to Louis as he shoves the remaining of the apple seeds in his palms. “You go now.” The boy tells, and Louis doesn’t dare to disobey.

Louis digs about four holes, all lined up next to the other trees, until Jack decides it’s enough. They plant the seeds, and the little boy disappears briefly after they’re done, and come back with a pot filled with water. Louis helps him to water the newly planted seeds and dunks the remaining liquid in the other roots.

“Now what?” Louis asks, just because there’s a spark in Jack’s eyes that tell him that they’re not done with their mission.

“Now we have to get corn for the chickens.” He decides.

Louis smiles at the kid. “What if they grow huge, like in your dream?”

The child looks at the soldier as if he’s mad, an incredulous expression in his soft features and Louis has to chuckle at the sight. “They won’t, Louis. It was just a dream!” He laughs and pulls the man out and in towards the cornfield.

The pair spend the remaining of the day like that, and Louis never thought he could learn so much from a child. Aside from the hours and opportunities he got to bond with the little boy, he caught a glimpse of how Harry’s life has been for the past five years, and how it has _always_ been for Jack.

It’s a push and pull with nature. They feed the chickens, the few sheep that linger behind the barn, plant some more, water the flowers around the porch, take care of small details, like putting hay outside the chicken’s coop for them to make their nest. In the end, you get something in return, whether it’s some eggs for breakfast, vegetables for lunch, meat for dinner, or the simple gratification for being a part in a fair game.

It’s what it is. It’s fair, it works. You don’t take more than you need, and you give enough to survive with the rest. Louis can understand it now, how addicting it can be, and how it’s a pleasant trap to be stuck inside of. He’s realizing that at almost twenty-four, and it’s all that Jack has ever known his whole life.

Louis feels himself lighter at the end of the day, although his body is incredibly tired. His soul is at ease, an immense contrast to how he was feeling at the beginning of the day. There’s some light at the end of this ugly tunnel he called life, maybe it was the sun peeking through the horizon, shining on the barn’s mezzanine. Maybe it was the innocent spark of hope in Jack’s eyes, maybe even in Harry’s.

It was the fire in the kitchen’s oven, eating away at the logs of wood that Harry had cut before dinner time. Louis watched from the sink as the flames consumed it, turning it to chips of coal and ashes. Harry was curved over a pan resting on the hot flattened iron above the fire, adding herbs into the mix of green beans. The same beans Jack collected, and Louis had just finished washing thoroughly.

“How was the talk with him today?” Harry shoots him a knowing glance.

For the first time, Louis is overly excited to talk about his day, and to stay underneath the farmer’s attentive gaze. “It was good. He’s by far the most comprehensive kid I’ve ever met.” He tells, masking a compliment about Harry’s parenting.

“I saw you both around the farm all day. He really put you to work, didn’t he?” Harry says with a smirk, the fire painting his features amber and copper.

Louis shrugged, amused. “I just tagged along, he did all the work, really.”

Then, Harry’s eyes light up at the memory of something. “I forgot to tell you before, he named that newborn chick you found after you.”

To that, Louis’ jaw goes slack, pleasantly surprised. “What?”

“He says it’s going to be called just ‘Lou’, because we don’t know if it’s a chicken or a rooster yet.” The name rolls around in Harry’s tongue, and in his accent, it makes Louis’ chest swell.

“Well, it’s an honor, to be honest. I hope he doesn’t forget this one.” The soldier jokes.

The flames hiss when Harry tosses water to fuel the smoke. Louis throws him a cloth to wipe the droplets that fell on the counter. “Did he tell you about the giant chicken dream?”

He recalls and smiles immediately, nodding towards the farmer. “Yeah, he did.”

Louis doesn’t notice at first that green eyes are consuming the sight of his features, and when he does realize it, it makes him suddenly aware and conscious of his surroundings. Harry’s dimples pop slowly into his cheeks, a curl falls on his sweaty forehead and it stays there until he turns his face back towards the pan.

“What’s wrong?” Louis questions before he can stop himself.

“Nothing, it’s just-“ Harry interrupts himself, mixing the contents in the pot. Louis feels like he’s the one standing next to the flames when Harry glances at him for a moment. “I’ve never seen you smile like that before, it’s all.”

 _Because there was no reason to do it before._ Louis thinks but bites his lips to stop the words from pouring out of his mouth. Instead, he grins timidly and turns back around to work on cleaning the table and setting the dishes, and when Jack appears after the night has fallen, they share a meal with more smiles than Louis has ever had for a long time.

-

Louis ties the clothesline across the side of the house and pulls on the knot twice, making sure it’s tight enough. The tall grass under his feet graze his ankles and engulfs around the basket of damp sheets before he has time to hang them.

The wind is merciless, twisting the thin fabric into knots underneath Louis’ grip, but he manages, and when he finishes hanging all the large pieces of cloth, they dance like flags in the morning sun.

The farm is silent, Jack is somewhere around the barn, and by the faint distant noises, he can tell that the little boy is within the sheep’s’ area. Harry has left about two hours ago, in an old blue truck with a good portion of vegetables and seeds in the trunk, headed south towards the nearest city.

Once a week, Harry makes those one-day trips to the civilization. He sells a few things they cultivate and buys what they can’t make in the farm. Louis decides to stay back and watch out for Jack and take care of the daily chores around the farm.

It’s surreal how easily Louis settled inside their hectic routine. He learned fast how to follow through with the farm’s necessities, the early mornings, and the freezing nights. Louis’ presence was creating deep and strong roots in the propriety’s soil, without him even noticing.

Collecting eggs in the morning were already considered _his_ task. The dusty trunk in the corner of the room had been filled with _his_ clothes. Jack never picked up seeds without Louis by his side anymore, and his small legs would follow Louis around until he had a spare time to cut through the apples and the limes.

Even the chickens were already growing used to his presence. At night, when he went to close their fenced gate, the animals recoiled without a fail, and expected him to show up the next morning for their feeding time.

The farm lodge itself around Louis, and it could be almost considered a perfect fit. Inside Louis’ chest, the farm also grew its frame, and created a safe space to be, no matter the darkness living there, the damaged years and broken sentiments. Louis felt himself healing bit by bit, at every sunrise and sunset that he was there to witness.

Jack found a place for himself inside Louis’ heart, too. The little boy’s soul was too big, too bright to stay in one body alone. Louis felt himself always getting lighter, weightless in the company of the child, in the silence of the task of picking seeds, or amid the noise of feeding the sheep.

Harry sneaked his way into the soldier’s chest. Small gestures that proved Louis that the farmer was also a good-hearted man, a golden soul.

It’s delicate, the way that Harry shows that he cares. It’s like the thin dust that coats old furniture, like the fragile maroon paper that protects the cigarettes from falling out of the package.

It’s the time that Harry takes to pick peppermint outside in the early morning, selecting the leaves carefully before making tea just for Louis, because he mentioned once that he missed it. It’s the tenderness in which he instructs Louis to do new chores. It’s in the way that he smiles at the soldier whenever he can, and when Louis smiles back, he looks like Louis himself has a spot in his heart, too.

It hit Louis the day before, when he was doing laundry in the streak of water a mile away from the farm and didn’t find his uniform in the basket of clothing he had selected. It hit him when Harry told him that he had washed his uniform himself days before and put it away in his own bedroom, afraid that it might trigger Louis in some way. After that, Louis couldn’t stop grinning at the mere thought of Harry and his subtle affection.

Louis washed his hat, as a grateful return, and Harry looked like Louis had hung the moon when he showed up with the clean accessory.

It’s tender and delicate, like cherries’ stems, the way that they are slowly getting used to one another. It’s painless and effortless. Louis really can’t stop smiling.

Around five in the afternoon, the truck parks in front of the house just as the sun begins to make its way down the line of the horizon. Jack pops out of the chicken’s coop and approaches to help, much like Louis himself.

Harry sold everything he managed to put in the truck and bought back a good quantity of groceries for the week. Soap, olive oil, rice, seeds, salt, sugar, and such.

After everything is organized, they have dinner and when Jack goes to bed, Harry pulls out a bottle of whisky from the passenger seat of the truck.

“How do you like it?” Harry offers as he pulls two cups from the cabinet.

Louis turns his head from where he’s standing, leaned on the kitchen table after doing the dishes. He smirks; “I think a good five-second one would be delightful.” He says, rolling his tongue as he speaks in an attempt to pull an amused smile out of Harry. It works.

The farmer, like requested, pours the amber-colored liquid for five seconds, and hands to Louis after he’s shut the bottle. They clink their glasses; the noise reverberates through the silent kitchen. A candle in the counter washes the room in tawny tones.

The first sip burns down their throats, and Harry even laughs after he groans at the pleasant sting. Louis smiles too, licking his lips to escape the burn of the alcohol in his tongue. “How’s the city?” The soldier questions after a moment.

Harry ponders, eyes stuck to his glass. “Not as chaotic, I suppose.” He responds.

Louis nods, recalling the conditions of his own hometown during the past few years. The tension was thick in the air back then, and people were visibly scared to walk the streets. He remembers seeing eyes constantly pointing at the sky, waiting for a missile or a bomb to fall at any giving second.

There was chaos when the inflation arose, when the first troops marched the boulevards. Louis was there, in the middle of it all, and he saw how a city can be destroyed in a matter of hours, being it civilians against soldiers, or civilians against themselves.

“It got a lot better.” Harry says after a minute or two of easy silence. “Before, I had to make the trip with my shotgun strapped to my back.”

“People get used to chaos.” Louis mumbles after a moment. The silent home drinks in his voice as they sip on the distilled alcohol.

Harry shakes his head slightly, his curls bouncing above his ears. “I don’t think they do, they just don’t have another choice but to live with it. I got lucky with this place.”

“So did I.” Louis declares quietly.

Harry looks at him through his eyelashes, the candlelight casting shadows on the top of his cheeks. He appears to have words tracing the tip of his tongue, barely stumbling out of his mouth, but them he downs the alcohol entirely down his throat, and winces before he finally talks. “What do you miss most about normal life? Before all went down?”

Louis thinks for barely a second; “I miss music.” He informs. “Miss the Duke Ellington piano. Even Billie Holiday.”

The radio in the quarters was a small boxy thing, the sound came out choppy and withered out every two minutes or so, but it was Louis’ favorite item in the whole ordeal. It was his personal way of coping, the soft jazz, and the faded instruments before all the noise and the loud, unnecessary salutes.

_“Them that's got shall get,”_

Louis looks up from the wood patterns on the table.

_“Them that's not shall lose”_

Louis immediate recognizes the song, but it’s not what stuns him. It’s Harry and his deep voice, singing, as he stands up slowly from his chair and begins moving his legs awkwardly, dancing like the flame that burns the candle wax.

“You’re an absolute lightweight.” Louis chuckles, and finishes his whisky all in one go, as if to prove a point. He’s got no arguments, though. Harry is still dancing, and he can’t stop looking, can’t stop smiling.

“I haven’t drunk in a while. Bought the bottle just for you.” Harry confesses, his eyes glossy and his cheeks flushed. He smiles before he continues to sing; _“So the Bible said and it still is news,”_

“I should call you Harry Holiday.” Louis speaks, feeling the alcohol turning his lips numb.

Harry’s large hand comes in front of his eyes, and he takes it instantly. “C’mon, dance with me.”

When Louis stands up, he fights a slight stumbling of his limbs, but so does Harry. _“Mama may have, Papa may have, but God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own,”_

Harry sings beautifully, not failing one single note on the familiar melody, but Louis wouldn’t admit that out loud. He’s not sure he _can,_ because there’s a pleasant buzz in his brain when Harry places a hand on his shoulder, the one on his waist. There’s a white noise in his senses and Harry’s singing is the only thing that’s keeping him present, like an anchor. A lighthouse.

He continues to sing, and Louis does nothing but to listen and move along with his uncoordinated moves. He’s got his hands in Harry’s shoulders, and he doesn’t know where to look. Everywhere he glances at has a tone of amber, like whisky, like familiar dimples in a smile.

So, Louis closes his eyes, and he can hear the soft drums behind Harry’s voice, the echo of the microphone. The sweetness of the flute hides behind the farmer’s touches on his sides while they swing their bodies slowly, barely tracing the atmosphere of the room.

Louis doesn’t realize he’s resting his forehead on Harry’s collarbones, not until he opens his eyes after the song ends and meets the sight of golden skin.

It’s gentle, the way they say goodnight and go to their own beds minutes later, steps carefully placed in attempts to not disturb Jack. Once inside the room, the soldier sighs, enjoying the remaining sensations of alcohol in his bloodstream and the intoxication of Harry’s company flowing through his brain.

Lying under the wool blanket, he stares at the dark ceiling, feels the gentle gushes of wind that enter the place. Louis is almost calling the room _his,_ too.

-

The next morning, Louis finds newspaper Harry had bought the previous day, resting closed and untouched on the surface of the table. The sunlight that bleeds into the kitchen is warm, but Louis feels shivers when he sits down and opens the flaps of paper.

It’s only printed words on a surface, but it holds so much. He’s grasping at the edges to the point of ripping it, but he doesn’t stop reading, his blue eyes going over sentence after sentence.

Pictures related to the war are displayed like medals on the front page. Soldiers, ships, guns, blood, politicians that Louis used to risk his _life_ for. And they don’t even know his name.

He wonders what would have happened if he didn’t escape. The photos taken of troops, men like himself lined up in battlefields and quarters, _almost_ paints a familiar sting deep down in his lungs. The sentiment is guilt _._

He should be ashamed, feeling miserable at the remembrance of his decision back at the shore. He should be cursing himself for a decision made in fear, with emotion instead of rationality. He should be there, rifles on his shoulders, leather straps in his waist around his uniform and his head held up high, traveling around to countries he doesn’t know, invading lands he doesn’t care for.

However, he can’t, and he _won’t._ He won’t feel ashamed or regretful. He can’t feel a single twinge of disappointment or humiliation. Not when Harry is pacing outside, picking tea leaves for his morning tea, and preparing himself for another day of work around the farm. Not when Jack is peacefully asleep upstairs, and not when the chickens are waiting for him to feed them.

He puts the newspaper down just when Harry enters through the front door, his hand closed around a fistful of leaves and stems. His expression is immediate when he looks at Louis. Concern is coated beneath the rosiness in his cheeks from just minutes of being out in the morning sun.

Louis grins as the farmer puts a kettle on top of the bits of burnt logs still left from dinner, places the leaves in another smaller cotton bag and lets it float above the warming water. “Any good news?” Harry questions, attempting on filling the silent kitchen with something else than just the flickering ashes in the oven.

The soldier shakes his head mindlessly. “Just the same as always.” He responds, his calm tone easing the frown in Harry’s features.

The smell of peppermint soon fills the atmosphere, and it calms Louis’ already peaceful state of mind. Harry seems to be relaxed to, from the way he’s leaning his hips against the counter while his finger twists the cotton bag slowly, sinking and raising it, as the water turns into tea.

When Harry is finished, he pours the hot beverage on two cups and takes a seat on the table across from Louis. His eyes match the color of the tea, of the trees, the sacred land around them. “Thanks.” Louis mutters, grateful, and Harry grins before they take a sip.

Amid the comfortable silence and the fresh taste of peppermint tea, Harry’s gentle tone adds to the sounds of the morning; “I’ve never been to the beach.” He says, almost in a mumble of words that Louis can’t make out.

The soldier looks down and finds a picture of a beach on the opened newspaper. It can barely be considered a beach, corrupted by the recruiting ships and the obscene amount of men scattered around the hallowed sand. The sea and the waves are hidden behind the ugliness of humankind, and it’s the beauty that Harry spots in seconds on a grainy representation printed on paper.

Louis remembers the beach being a part of his childhood, before it got ruined by war. His mother was specially fond of the sea and the life that lived there in its mysterious depths. She once said that if she had a daughter, she would have named her Ocean. Every July, when the sun was blazing and school was an afterthought, she would take him to the beach. Louis feels a sharp sense of longing before he reminds himself to respond.

“We should go there, someday.” He whispers. The tea’s steam draws a pattern in the air in front of Harry’s face. “You know, when the war’s over.”

Louis doesn’t measure the impact of his words before he says it. Not when he’s expressing hope for the end of those horrible times, which is something that was nowhere to be found in his mind a few weeks ago, but he directly inserts himself in the concept of Harry’s future.

He takes another sip of his tea out of nervousness. Harry grins sweetly towards him, green eyes lost somewhere in Louis’ eyelashes, bathed in the morning light. “When the war’s over, then.”

-

Louis ignores the confusion in Harry’s expression when he asks the farmer for a wooden board and rope. He should be used to Louis’ spontaneous manners by now, since it’s been an entire month since Louis entered the small farm’s scenario.

The middle of May was slightly more humid, and the nights were warmer. Harry was excited for the summer, never forgetting to mention daily about all the types of fruits he wanted to cultivate in the intense heat, and how the up-coming thin rainstorms were great for the cattle and the soil.

“Can I at least know what you’re going to do with these?” Harry questions, his voice echoing inside the barn as he hands Louis the requested boards and the thickest rope he could find.

Louis takes the materials and heads outside, the sun immediately prickling his exposed shoulders. “It’s a surprise for Jack. Is there something he can do inside the house for the afternoon? I don’t want him to see it until it’s ready.” He responds, ignoring Harry’s question.

Luckily, the farmer doesn’t push, and manages to keep the child inside the home, with easy and simple cleaning tasks around the rooms.

Working underneath the shadow of an oak tree by the front yard, Louis spends less than two hours in the making of his gift for the little boy. He doesn’t have a specific reason to build him a swing rope, but then again, Louis has never felt this spontaneous since his teenage years.

The atmosphere in the farm may have changed him. Louis doesn’t feel his heart beating rapidly before he falls asleep anymore, he doesn’t wake up in a cold sweat as frequently. Some days are harder than others, however, today is the day he wants to feel grateful, even if it materializes through a swing rope in an oak tree for a child he deeply cares for by now.

When he ties the rope securely and tests it for longer than necessary, he calls out for Harry, who appears in a rush and smiles hugely when he sees it.

“Louis, he’s going to love this.” The farmer says, a thin layer of sweat settling on his hairline, his curls moving with the breeze. Louis can’t tear his eyes away. “Can I go get him?” He asks, and when Louis nods, he runs inside the house, excited like a child himself.

Jack doesn’t understand it at first, how it’s suppose to work, although his chubby cheeks are pulled in a big smile as he watches Louis explaining how he’s suppose to swing, back and forth, legs out and back, hands on the rope.

“It’s alright, just don’t let go of the rope.” Louis instructs, settling the child above the thick board of wood, and then he pushes. From there, Jack takes over and spends about an hour swinging, his little legs flopping in the air as he goes.

The sun is about to go down soon, and despite the trio’s distraction over the swing rope, there’s a lot of things to do around the farm yet. Harry recoils the cattle and Louis finishes his task at the barn, gathering up hay and stocking for the summer, when rain randomly strikes. He’s planning on fixing the roof too but hasn’t told Harry yet.

In the middle of sunset, Louis exits and locks the barn. On his way to the house, he finds Harry sitting at the roots of the oak tree, fidgeting with his hat, and glancing up at the twisted branches.

Sometimes, Louis wonders if Harry ever nightmares has too, if he’s as stuck on his sister’s passing as Louis is on his mother’s. He wonders if Harry has ever felt lonely; if his chest ever felt hollow.

After a month of living with the small family, Louis has discovered more things about himself and Jack, than about Harry. Although the farmer is always kind and seemingly happy, he’s preserved in the way he shares his feelings, choosing small gestures instead of words.

It took a while for Louis to pick up those traits, to notice how slight changes told so much. How Harry dresses some days, or how occasionally, he leaves his bedroom closed, instead of open to let the wind in. He hides his feelings in the colors of the teacups he chooses in the morning, or behind the way he laces his boots patiently and neatly, when some days he doesn’t wear them at all.

It’s enough for Louis to know that Harry is at peace when he spots the man, quietly humming underneath the tree. It’s enough for him to know it’s alright to sit beside him and let their knees touch for a brief second before Harry gazes at him with soft eyes.

It takes a moment for Harry to speak the words grazing his lips. “Thank you for that, Lou.”

Louis smiles at him. It’s another thing that shows he’s happy and tranquil, when he shortens Louis’ name; it seems like his voice has been coated in honey, sweet and slow-flowing, like a jazz song. “I’m glad he liked it. Better use it a lot, before he grows.”

Harry chuckles. “Those ropes are solid, though. It’ll hold him for a while.” The farmer states, pursuing his lips, and drawing them into a lovely grin. Louis could only watch, admired.

The frequency in which Louis found himself glancing at Harry’s features underneath the colors of the sunset was obscene. Louis has seen him in the dusk, in the candlelight and in the pink tones of a particular sunrise, and it still amazes him every time.

Louis has heard about sinful love before. He has read about the wrongness of men coming together, the sin wrapped around the junction of two people like them, or anything that escapes God’s idea of perfection. He has read about the punishments provided by hell fire, the recklessness that leads to the impurity of humankind.

Still, feeling his chest go warm in Harry’s presence feels nothing but right. The flowers that bloom in his stomach when Harry’s voice echoes in the kitchen in the morning, coated by sweet tea.

The thought of Harry entirely rips away at every constructed and forced idea into Louis’ mind. The farmer broke all his walls down, and exposed a raw interior, full of kindness and love that Louis didn’t know existed there before.

The bravery and supposed blessing of war felt like nothing compared to the sacredness of Harry’s company, how he always laced his words with care, how he treated the earth and its creatures better than the angels above.

If loving Harry is so wrong, why does the sunset colors fit so well between his features? Why does the night insist on bathing him with nebula, stars like the freckles on his skin? Why does Louis feel his best, when he’s there beside him, not when he’s in the battlefield, at God’s will?

So many questions that will never be answered because Louis doesn’t care enough to ask. He spent too much time obsessing over the details of his life, and it all came crashing down anyways, with war, loss, and trauma. For the first time, he feels like his chest isn’t hollow.

And by the livid green in Harry’s eyes as he stares back at Louis, the farmer feels the same.

“Louis?” Harry calls in a whisper, a tone that the breeze carries away with ease.

“Yes?” The soldier replies. A curl falls on top of Harry’s eyebrow, brushing against his eyelashes as he blinks. Louis doesn’t hesitate when he raises his hand and delicately pushes the strand of chestnut hair back, tucking it behind the farmer’s ear.

Harry inhales deeply at the grazing touch, the barely-there warmth of Louis’ fingertips. Before Louis can retract, Harry’s palm rises from his lap, and intertwines their fingers together as he presses Louis’ hand against his cheek completely. “We’re far from the people and their issues, don’t hold back. Please.”

It’s true. They are far away from anything that could stop them, the middle of nowhere being the safest place on Earth for them to fall in love. The sacred land where sacred love is created. However, Louis is certain that even if they weren’t safe, he wouldn’t resist the sight of Harry, his pleading eyes, his warm skin beneath his touch.

Louis closes the gap between their lips, and the war stops.

The battlefields freeze in time, the guns get jammed and no shots can be fired. The politicians are quiet, the cities halts in its chaos. The only thing that isn’t silent is the beat of Louis’ heart.

Harry’s lips are soft, and he tastes like warm peppermint tea, like summer and fresh apples. He kisses Louis back so tenderly that Louis feels his scars disappearing, the marks in his skin melting off like candle wax.

He’s scared for a moment, that the crudeness and the dark stories hidden in the traces of his hands will stain Harry’s soul, drag him to hell like the sin he’s supposed to be committing. He’s afraid to break the porcelain of Harry’s skin and to contaminate him with the crudity of his nightmares. However, Harry’s hands hold Louis’ jaw so lovingly that he feels like he’s wants to fall apart, just to have Harry touch him again and again.

They don’t break the kiss until a chillier breeze run by and flickers Harry’s curls back on his face, trapping his smile in waves of soft hair. Louis leans against the oak tree and notices Harry’s fingers still tracing the edges of his face delicately. He can’t grasp at how the farmer can see gentleness in him.

Harry is chuckling breathlessly, staring into the blue of Louis’ eyes. “I can’t believe this is real.” He whispers and the wind carries his voice away.

So, Louis kisses him again, just to prove that it’s real.

-

“What is this from?” Harry’s voice reverberates inside the washroom.

It’s so quiet and peaceful that the candle in the sink wavers, the noises of the water in the old tub are loud and fills the room. It’s peaceful where Louis is, leaning against Harry’s chest, their bare skins joined within the soapy water. Harry’s arms are around him, his lips traveling through the back of Louis’ neck, the side of his jaw.

His pale fingertip is brushing through a patch of rough skin on Louis’ left shoulder blade. Louis can barely feel the touch, but it’s such a sensitive piece of twisted nerves that he shivers. Or maybe, it’s just the context of it that aches in his chest.

“A gunshot, but it just grazed me.” Louis responds softly, although his mind screams at the remembrance of the injury. He gestures towards his right side, where a larger scar deepens his muscles; the water ripples at the gesture and Harry looks down. “This one went through my shoulder.”

Lying against Harry in a bathtub is the only place on Earth that Louis will allow himself to be this vulnerable. Not even after their first kiss, almost two months ago, did Louis let the farmer get too close, too soon.

He admires Harry’s patience, though. He appreciates that Harry never touched him without asking, and always waited for him to initiate every kiss. Not once did Louis feel overwhelmed. If he did, it was in the best sense of the word.

The early mornings and late nights were reserved just for the two of them. While Jack rested safely, the pair leaned about love, about patience and comprehension, all underneath the flame of a candle, or in the morning light. Between boxes of Piccadilly’s and cheap whisky, they talked and kissed, and it never went past heated make-out sessions where Louis always ended up flustered and heaving, while Harry’s lips turned into the color of cherries, and he tasted like it, too.

Even in the dimmed washroom, Louis can see how beautiful Harry is, and sense how his breathing echoes softly behind his ear. He shivers when the farmer kisses his hair, when he mumbles against his collarbones and touches every scar of his with a touch that should be reserved to precious things.

Louis is anything but a masterpiece, he believes. He’s scarred and sometimes he can snap, like the strings in an old guitar. Even knowing these facts, Harry adores him, and bathes with him every night as an excuse to hold him close, skin on skin, without overwhelming Louis.

“Don’t,” Harry whispers suddenly, but it sounds like a shout in the back of Louis’ head. He turns his face to the side, watching Harry’s damp curls falling at the corner of his eyes. “I can feel you thinking poorly of yourself.”

The soldier chuckles, bringing his hands up to trace the bones of Harry’s knees. His long legs barely fit in the tub and his thighs cradle the edges of Louis’ hips. “Are you a psychic?” He asks, gazing up when Harry places a kiss on his temple.

“No, I’m just in love.” He mutters. One of his hands come up to draw a random pattern on the top of Louis’ hand, rested on his knee. The soap creates bubbly lines across. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. The bravest, most kind-hearted man.”

Harry has a way of speaking that Louis thinks should be recorded and transmitted on the radios across the world. Louis believes that his tender tone could stop the war.

“You’re making me blush.” Louis jokes with a hint of sincerity. “You’re an angel, Haz.”

This time, Harry chuckles. “How can one be an angel and a sinner, all together?

Louis sighs, and closes his eyes, feeling the slow beat of Harry’s heart against his spine. “It feels right, doesn’t it? It’s all that what matters.”

When they leave the bathtub after their fingers have gone wrinkly and soft, Louis feels his breath hitching when he looks at Harry, his beautifully carved structure, the way his chest and his shoulders are broad and cast a shadow over his own figure, hidden in the darkness of the ocher candlelight.

Harry gives him a towel, and Louis doesn’t let go of his fingers when they graze one another. “Can I stay with you tonight?” Louis asks with all the courage he can gather in seconds.

Harry grins, dimples deepening in shadows. “Of course.”

Making love with Harry for the first time feels like a dream.

It’s what the stories about heaven should be based off. It’s the taste of fresh water when you’re thirsty, it’s the sunlight that hits your skin when you’re cold.

When Harry lays him down, he feels like he’s falling forever, collapsing into an endless loop of bliss. Harry is as delicate as he is with everything. “Can I touch you, Lou?” He requests before he gets a positive answer, before he travels his fingertips all over Louis’ smaller body, over his curves, over the muscles, the scars.

He gently nibbles at Louis’ jaw, eases any pain with tenderness, and Louis can’t help but moan beneath his palm and bite his own flesh to remain quiet. Harry touches him like the peppermints he collects in the mornings, attentively, and licks his skin like he tastes of paradise.

“I love you, I love you,” Harry keeps mumbling, over and over, and Louis repeats it like an echo, as if Harry’s screaming into a void. Louis is anything but empty, in all senses of the word. He’s got Harry, he’s got love and a twinge of care towards himself.

Louis loves Harry. It shows it in the way he wraps his legs around the taller man, and how he can’t tear his eyes away from his face when it twists in pleasure. He loves the edges of Harry’s sharp jaw and the growing curls in his head that fall over his eyes. Not enough candles would be enough to illuminate Harry’s features like he deserves it.

And Harry loves Louis, he loves the perfect imperfections and his piercing blue eyes like the clearest sea. He loves his sweet voice and his eagerness, the little noises that escapes from his parted lips. He loves how he feels, how he touches him, how he scratches the edges of his shoulder blades because he doesn’t want to be apart.

The steam in the room grows as the night continues to run its race against the sun. The candle is burnt to a remaining inch when they collapse in mattress, skins damp with sweat and limbs numb. The moon sings a song about love, but Louis can only Harry humming him to sleep.

The next morning, Louis moves all his clothes to Harry’s bedroom, making it _theirs_. His old room becomes empty and unused again.

-

September is not a good month for Louis. The memories bring relapses to Louis’ state of peace, and it makes him wake up in a cold sweat more often than the usual. Except, this time, he’s jolting awake in the middle of the night and he’s squirming against the embrace of Harry’s arms.

He hates that when he sits up in bed after a nightmare, Harry glances at him and fights the urge to hold him. He can read it in the farmer’s face, how it pains him to watch Louis’s breathing slowly collapsing just to be picked up again when he opens his eyes in the darkness.

Louis wonders if Harry is ever going to grow tired of him. If he’ll ever make the decision to kick Louis out, demand that he takes his traumas and his shaking hands back to where he came from. The thought makes him insecure and it only feeds his self-loathing. How can he think so low of Harry, when the man has done nothing but to love him, to show him what existence should be made of?

“You’re alright, Louis, it’s fine-“ Harry tries, whispering inside the quietness of their bedroom. The sun is beginning to swallow the night outside, and he can make the frown in Harry’s face through the dusk behind the curtain.

Louis shakes his head, holding onto his own arms, as if he’s scared that haunted creatures will leave through his chest. “Why is this happening? Why can’t I be at peace, like everyone else?” He speaks and shivers, pacing around the bedroom. His bare feet make no noise, but he instantly feels guilty about the possibility of waking Jack up. He stops and stands in the middle of the room, feeling like a ghost.

“Because those things hurt, and they stay with you.” Harry says, standing up from the bed too, mirroring Louis position so he doesn’t feel so alone. “But it’s alright, we’ll pull through it together, like we’ve been doing all this time, remember? You’ve got Jack, and you’ve got me. We’re a family, Lou.”

Harry’s tone is sweet, and he can hear him through the buzz in his head, but he can’t absorb the words, the reassurance that Harry is trying to provide. He wants to be better, to get better, for Harry and for Jack, but he feels chained, a prisoner of his past.

“Why do I feel so heavy all the time?” He mumbles, eyes everywhere in the room, looking for blood and missiles in the shadows.

Harry slowly reaches for his shoulders, his jaw. When he doesn’t flinch away, the farmer plants his palms there, grounding Louis slightly. “Because you think you have fault in the things that happened when it’s actually far from it. Because you believe that you’re damaged beyond repair. You look down whenever something good happens to you because you don’t think you deserve it.”

It’s scary, how Harry reads through Louis in a heartbeat. Louis knows he can do it to Harry too. He can read the slightest frowns in the farmer’s features and he can tell by the way he speaks when he’s upset or worried. He read Harry the same way when he had found a pair of his sister’s gloves hidden in an old chest, months ago.

He cried for what felt like an eternity, and Louis spent hours reassuring him that his sister would be eternally grateful for caring after her child, for loving Jack as if he is his own son. He assured Harry that Jack was an amazing child because of him, and that whenever she was then, she was smiling at him proudly.

Still, when Louis is breaking down, it’s hard to find his balance back. It’s harder to realize that he needs to do it for himself too, even when he hates himself so deeply at times.

Harry’s voice echoes again, and it’s tender like the thumb that catches a tear down Louis’ cheek. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until then. “I can never know how much it hurts to live with the things you saw. But I can’t watch it consume you, either. I want to help, I don’t know how, but I want to, and I will.”

“It’s not worth it, Harry. I’m not.” He mumbles, and the shadows grow darker.

The green in Harry’s eyes light up like a flame, and not in a pleasant way. He’s visibly upset, but his hold on Louis is still nothing but gentle. “How can you say that? How can you ever think of yourself like that, when I’m here looking at you like-“ He sighs. “I’m here, looking at you and I’m convinced you’re made of sunlight. I’ve watched hundreds of sunrises and none of them come close to the way you make me feel, when I look at you.”

The shadows in the corners of the room fight against the light in Harry’s eyes. The dusk spreads through the space and Louis can see now that Harry is crying too. “Stop,”

“No, Louis.” The farmer whispers, lacing his long fingers around Louis’ face. “I’ll never do anything to hurt you. I won’t stop loving you.”

The soldier grins weakly. “If you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you.” He says, repeating one of the first things that Harry told him. It feels so distant now, the day everything changed. The day he decided to make a run towards nowhere, instead of going down to a lethal path. The day he met Jack, and Harry, and everything that really mattered.

Harry grins too and rests their foreheads together as they close their eyes. Louis wraps his arms around Harry’s waist, pulling him closer. “No one needs to hurt anymore. There’s enough pain in this world for a couple centuries, at this point. So please, let me love you.” Harry speaks, his breathing coming out peaceful, in contrast with Louis’ hectic inhales.

Louis focuses and synchronizes his breathing with Harry’s as the sun continues to rise behind his partner. When there’s enough light to see the line of the horizon bright from afar, Harry looks down at him, hands cradling his face. “You’re strong, and brave, but not for the things you went through. It’s just in your nature, to be brave. To be you.”

The soldier, now a farmer too, feels his heart getting lighter. Harry said he’s made of sunlight, but Harry himself looks like an angel, a sacred creature from heaven that came into his life on an aimless walk through a nameless dirt road. “You’re brave too, Haz. More than any of the soldiers I’ve fought beside.”

Dimples come to live then, and Louis feels absolutely blessed. “Nothing can stop us, then.”

He kisses Harry like he’s made of golden sun rays, so perfect, warm, and inviting. They go back to bed and only get up again when Jack comes into the bedroom, throwing himself on top of the couple, erupting laughs, and morning embraces.

It’s all that matters.

-

Louis missed the sounds of the sea. The waves crashing against themselves, dying slowly in the pale sand, sizzling away with the tide. He wonders for a moment, what kinds of creatures live down below, if they ever settle battles among themselves.

It’s been two months since the war has ended. November is cold, the weather chilly and the breezes are gelid at night, but ironically, it’s been the brightest time of Louis’ life. It’s 1945, six years since Louis got forced into a life of violence and trauma, and a year and a half since he found his beacon of happiness, his path to the light.

“How does it feel?” Louis asks, his voice mending with the beach waves rolling towards the void of a blue-grey sky.

Harry gazes down at him, wiggling his toes in the sand for the first time. His hair is long now, and it flows like butterflies in the summer, in the oceanic air. “A bit dry and itchy. But it’s heavenly.”

Louis laughs, tightening his grip inside his lover’s hand. It’s freeing to be like this, holding strong onto the things your love, unafraid. The beach is empty, beside the two little figures running in the sand, close to the line where the sea and the sand meet.

“Hazzy! Lou! Why are you going so slow?” Jack yells, his little voice faded with the songs from the sea. He runs fast for a five-year old, soon to be six. Their dog is running too, happily, like he always is. His dark fur contrasts with the seafoam, and Louis watches with a smile when Jack and the dog, which they named Ocean, play chase by the shore.

The same shore where recruiting ships carved an eternal scar into the Earth, where the humankind hurt itself. Louis tries to not think about it, but it’s difficult to escape it. It’s the same beach he escaped from before he found the farm. It’s the place he made the decision to run, the place where he thought he would never see again, since the war would be the dead-end of his fate.

He felt like he was walking towards his death, back then. He thought of his mother, her love for the beach, her kind eyes frowning in worry.

It’s the best decision he’s ever made in his entire life, and for that, he glances up at the sky and hopes that his mother can see him now. He’s sure that she would love Harry; they share the same spirit of kindness, the same caring and nurturing traits. She would absolutely love him.

“Hey,” Harry calls, glancing at Louis. “You alright?”

Louis looks aside and feels tiny sand particles between their laced fingers. “Never been better.”

And it’s overwhelmingly good to say it because it’s true. The words that have been lodged in the back of his teeth for so long, hoping to one day come out in a truthful tone. Now, the beach’s salty breeze carries it away, like it’s just sand.

Harry smiles, and it’s all he needs to see to complete the view.

The world looks endlessly big from the beach, the way that the horizon carries on eternally, how the ocean splits the continents, the people, their wars. Louis feels small, and surprisingly grateful to be alive.

No badge of honor would ever provide him this feeling, this everlasting bliss of existing, of waking up every day to love and to be loved. What matters is now. It doesn’t matter if they’ll disappear after they pass, if their names stain nothing but a grave in the earth.

They’ll live in Jack’s memory, a tiny legacy in his mind and in his future, for whatever he decides to do with it.

Maybe he’ll tell stories of his kind uncle that took him under his wing when he had no one. How he raised him beautifully in a small farm in the middle of nowhere that was everything to them. He’ll tell, with great detail, about the day he found a tired soldier in their barn, the day they took him in and watched him grow out of his broken shell, becoming a part of the family.

He’ll tell the story of a lost soldier that escaped war and never went back; a brave man that found a road to hope, a place to call home, and never left.


End file.
